Minutes later,Toni followed her to the impressive marble lobby of the RS Corporation building.All eyes across the nineteenth floor seemed to zero in on Toni when they stepped out of the elevator.
Louisa settled behind her desk and fidgeted around before she announced her to Grey. It took only a second for six feet three inches of handsome and magnificent to fill the doorway.That smile. From her desk, Louisa looked like she had never seen it. It was wide and devastating, it was so dazzling. Toni felt tiny butterflies race down to her toes when he jerked his head toward his office. “Get in here, Miss Kearny.”
Toni did.
He leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms, looking displeased. “You steal my assistant for two hours and dare come here without something for me?”
“I’ve got this.” She lifted her skirt, and Grey peeked at one of her newest acquisitions: a sheer pink thong that was barely there. He palmed her ass, his hands huge and tanned on Toni’s creamy buttocks as they squeezed.
“I like that.” She squeaked in delight when he massaged deeper, his chuckle echoing in her warming body. “Hmm. I like that more.”
She dropped her skirt and whirled around to trap him by the collar. “I thought I could steal you now.”
“I’m afraid that’s going to cost you,” he drawled in deceptive casualness.
“Oh? And do you take body as payment?” She signaled to all five feet four inches of herself with what was, hopefully, a tempting sweep of her hands.
Brows quirked in interest, Grey moved around his desk and punched an extension from his desk phone.
“Louisa, what does my afternoon look like?”
It seemed to look busy, because Louisa spent a long time on the other end of the line. But what mattered to Toni, what gave her the opportunity to be with the man she loved and talk and make love, was Grey’s arrogant smile and the husky command, “Empty it.”
Chapter Fourteen
It was a hotel room number, and the two times she tried there was no answer. She didn’t dare to leave a message.With a sinking heart, she grabbed the Post-it and tore it.
Enough of him. Forget it. Forget Cabo!
Plopping down on the couch, she covered her face with her hands and groaned in misery. It was no use; she couldn’t forget. And all she wanted was to know how he was doing. Whereas before their weekend, Grey would mention him all the time, the subject of Heath had been carefully avoided for two weeks. Toni was desperate to know something about him. Anything. Was he all right? Was he with someone? Did he at least think about her?
She was in that same sulking position when Grey got home, and as she rose to greet him as she always did, she gathered her courage. She worked on his tie and jacket and rumpled his hair, and whispered, “Grey, I wa
nt to talk to you about something.”
He placated her with a kiss. “Ten minutes, then I’m yours.”
And he disappeared into the bathroom, where she heard him running the water for a shower. Normally she might have joined him, but she was too anxious for anything except running her thoughts through her mind. So she waited on the bed, knees curled under her, fingers drumming on her thighs. Talking was the best way to go. If only he would express his opinions more openly, and he would listen to hers . . .
The phone rang, and when she lifted it, she answered to silence. “Hello?” she repeated.
“I’m calling for Grey.”
The low, gruff sound of thunder gripped at her chest. “Heath?”
“Yeah.”
Inside her a feeling went loose, wild and untamed, like a deadly tornado. She began to shiver, her hand trembling, her lungs straining for air. She wanted to weep with joy and to cry with sorrow at the distance she sensed between them.“You could at least say hello to me,” she said, more with longing than accusation.
And briskly, almost coolly, he said, “Hello, Toni.”
His voice . . . it was almost too much to bear. A breath shuddered out of her.
She wiped her free hand on her lap—it was clammy, and suddenly she didn’t know what to do with it except tug at the fabric on her waist. “H-how have you been?”
“Working.”
“Oh.”